The use of laser projection processes in manufacturing, such as manufacturing in the aerospace and automotive industries, provides many advantages. For example, when multiple components (e.g., airplane parts) are to be assembled together, laser projection techniques can be used to determine the correct location and orientation of the components to be assembled and to project the corresponding fastener locations directly on the component surfaces. This allows an assembler to quickly and accurately locate and drill the fastener holes eliminating the need for specialized tooling and drilling templates, which, in the past, have proven to be cumbersome as well as resource intensive.
Typically, laser projection processes involve modeling structural requirements with a computer aided design (CAD) tool, such as Unigraphics or CATIA, and then converting some of the geometric information generated using this computer-aided design tool into another file format used by the laser projector. For example, when fastener locations are to be laser projected, a three-dimensional symbol, such as a crosshair, must be modeled and stored for each fastener location in the CAD model, which can equate to several thousand locations on a typical aircraft assembly. These three-dimensional symbols are then converted into another file format suitable for the laser projector.
While current laser projection techniques have many advantages and virtually eliminate the need for specialized tooling and drill templates, such laser projection techniques have limitations. For example, current projection techniques are typically limited to projecting simple fastener location information (e.g., a point or crosshair projected onto the part). If a designer wishes to project or display any additional information about the fastener, he or she manually generates curves or other information in the CAD model, which is time-consuming and prone to error given the large quantity of fasteners on a typical aircraft assembly. Further, no additional information about the fasteners is converted using the current laser projection software, such as hole size or fastener type. Accordingly, the capabilities of current projection methods are limited by such software. Moreover because current projection methods are typically implemented such that the non-geometric information about the fasteners is processed separately, it is difficult to ensure configuration control, especially with large and complex manufacturing projects.